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TRIBEWORK is about consuming the process of life, the journey, together.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Where’s the Pressure Coming From?

Life is a pressurised environment
especially nowadays. But stress makes so much more of an impact when our
pressure is self-imposed. From within us, bubbling up from the centre, is the
secret presence of unconscious anxiety that drives us—some of us more than
others—to do many of the things we feel
compelled to do.

Why is this so? Why do we feel so
pressured to do even voluntary things? Why is it we feel guilty when we don’t
do them? Why do we get angry when we are blocked from doing these things? And
when will we finally surrender to balance?

Some of the answers reside so deep
within us we cannot know unless we delve into the unconscious, or at least be
open regarding the lack within us that always wants (or needs) to compensate.

Challenging Each Pressure Situation

A good way to feel less driven
regarding external goals, especially about keeping other people happy, when, by
that, we can’t be, is to challenge our thinking in the midst of the pressure
situation. In the moment of the decision, we reflect, and with courage we
decide for what’s best in the longer run.

Besides our paid jobs, where our
families rely on us to put food on the table, and other critical roles, like
parenting, most other roles of life are voluntary.

They should be enjoyed. What we do
not need to do we should want to do.

If we can’t feel effervescent in
our delivery of these voluntary roles, we should ask ourselves if we are called
to do them. To do them through the agency of guilt is less than satisfactory.
There’s nothing wrong with this, per se, so long as we’re conscious of it. And
we don’t need to be one hundred percent satisfied all the time.

When we challenge each pressure
situation, understanding where the pressure is coming from, we convert a sense
of helplessness into the feeling of calm, even privileged, responsibility for
control.

When we allow excuses that we are
controlled from outside, and our will has been subverted, we end up being not
only useless to other people but useless to ourselves, also. We would be
pitiable if we weren’t so pathetic.

We have more say over the pressure
we feel to do things than we sometimes believe. When we ask, ‘Where is the
pressure coming from?’ we can understand how much we are imposing on ourselves.

Taking control of our lives is, in
essence, taking responsibility for the pressures we feel. Only we are able to
control our thoughts, and therefore our feelings, and therefore our actions.